I enjoyed this film, which offers a variety of interesting subplots and complex love-hate relationships, along with interspersed action scenes and some lighthearted moments in which the mountain men counter harsh army discipline. All of the main characters are well cast. True, John Wayne or Robert Mitchum probably could have done as well in the starring role, but Victor Mature certainly comes across as a head-strong brawling tarzan of sorts. Reminds me of his film role as Samson, another difficult, but not impossible, man to tame.
The 3 mountain men in the opening scene are certainly an anachronism, as the era of mountain men pure trappers pretty much ended 20 years before this story takes place, with the collapse of western beaver populations as well as of the beaver fashion market. This story supposedly takes place in Oregon, just before the end of the Civil War. Judging by the volcano in the background of the opening scene(probably Mt. Lassen , in California), the fort is in a very remote area of the Cascades, as we never see any other civilians. However, there is plenty of conflicting evidence that it actually takes place in the mountains of Wyoming or Montana! Red Cloud, the war chief who threatens both the trappers and the army fort, is the namesake of a very famous Sioux war chief, who led a very successful campaign in 1865-6 to exterminate recent army outposts in Wyoming and Montana. Fort Laramie(eastern Wyoming) is mentioned as being not too far removed from the fictional fort. The plains tribe of Assiniboines is mentioned as joining Red Cloud. This aspect of the stroy, then, bears a general resemblance to historical fact.
It may be of interest to note cetain resemblances between the plot of this story and that of John Ford's "Ft. Apache". In both cases, we have a fort commander assigned to his first frontier post with Native American problems in the area, who underestimates the miliary prowess of his adversaries, regarding them as little more than cannon fodder to promote his career. In both films, he pays dearly for his inexperience in dealing with the enemy. Also in common, the greenhorn commander resents a subordinate who has long experience dealing with the local Native Americans, and who wants to tell him what is wise or unwise to do. In both films, we have a budding romance between a woman very close to the commander's heart and a subordinate, which the commander does everyhing to squelch. Clearly, the commander must be eliminated to allow these romances to proceed to completion.
I also see certain resemblances with "The Misfits". The soldiers, as a whole, including the commander, are misfits of a sort(as one admits) in that they are mostly raw recruits from the East who know nothing about fighting Native Americans. The commander's wife, as apparently the only woman in or anywhere near the fort, is also a misfit, whose husband is very unsure of his future in the army. The 3 independent trappers, in turn, are misfits, not really wishing to adapt to army or civilian discipline, yet their previous independent lives extinguished by Red Cloud's recent antagonism.
Finally, I see certain resemblances with Anthony Mann's later western: "The Far Country", starring Jimmy Stewart. Again, we have a loner in a wild frontier area who finds it very difficult to settle down into a convensional role. In Stewart's case, he doesn't really have to make that choice. He can go back to being a loner cowboy, minus his sidekick. But in the present film, Mature's character doesn't come up with an alternative practical way of being his own boss. He's lost his two trapper buddies and Red Cloud has made life in this area outside the army too dangerous to contemplate(This was certainly the case with the real Red Cloud). Besides, he very much wants the commander's wife.
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